8 August 2016 Pulau Telaga to Tarempa, Anambas
A strong squall passed through at one o’clock in the morning and forced us out of bed to check that we hadn’t dragged our anchor in the 30+ knot winds. Fortunately, it only lasted for ten minutes and we were able to collapse back in to bed. We were then woken at dawn by persistent rolling, but we adopted the first-aid “Recovery Position” and clung onto the bed until seven o’clock.
The rolling was caused by a 2-3 foot swell coming from the west, which was hooking around the northern tip of the island. We had breakfast and then decided that the 15 degree rolling was too much, so we upped anchor and ran away.
We stopped off at Genting Unjut, but the rather tight anchorage was a bit choppy with the south wind against the slight swell hooking around the corner. It was only 10 miles further to Tarempa Town, so we carried on and anchored in 11 metres, going as far into the corner as we dared - much better than being in 22 metres in dodgy holding.
After lunch, we wandered into town and called into the Tourist Office to see if they had a list of the events planned for Independence Day on the 17th August. Typically, they seemed mystified why we wanted this information and then said that the PR department were organising it all. We thanked them and walked back to the other end of town where we found the PR department (“Humas” department).
The PR department have organised three days of events from the 14th -16th August called the “Festival Lestari Anambas”. There was considerable chaos when we asked for a list of the events, as six employees scrabbled to find a document, but eventually we were given two copies of the precious schedule. There’s some kind of event happening on the 17th starting at 07:00 or 08:00 depending on who you talk to. We’ll make sure that we’re back in Tarempa on the 13th August.
We’re planning to go sailing for the next five days, so we did some provisioning. I was totally mortified that all the shops in the town have run out of beer. With only five cans of beer left on “Alba”, this is a crisis of mammoth proportions. It sounds like there’s a shipment on the way, so hopefully, we will be able to buy beer when we come back on the 13th and I’ll only have to go “cold turkey” for four days.
Later in the afternoon, we heard marching songs and watched several groups of people marching along the causeway, obviously practising for the Independence Day celebrations. I guess that there will be some kind of parade on the 17th August, but neither the PR department nor the Tourist office has mentioned this.
9 August 2016 Tarempa to Pulau Semut, Anambas
The weather forecast was very good for today, so we jumped out of bed early and headed 12 miles north-west to Pulau Durai. This island is a nesting site for hundreds of turtles. Until recently, the turtle eggs were harvested for human consumption, but the island is now a marine park and the turtles are being actively protected.
It’s a challenge to find an anchorage because the island is rather small and the reef is deep. After looking at a few places, we opted to drop our anchor at 03°20.42N 106°02.76E in 28 metres - this is on the north side of the island, giving us a little protection from the prevailing south winds. I snorkelled down to check the anchor and we’re anchored in coral rubble and sand, just outside the main fringing reef.
I rushed to fill our dive tanks and by ten o’clock we were in our dinghy going for a scuba dive. We anchored our dinghy at 03°20.40N 106°02.66E in 10 metres to the east of a large rock awash. The area where we were anchored is a huge plain of coral stretching for hundreds of metres. The water is very clear and the coral is very pretty and healthy.
We headed north-east for 100 metres and then descended a coral covered slope to 24 metres, where the sea bed was coral rubble and sand. (At this point, we could see Alba above us.) We stayed in the deeper water for ten minutes, but apart from a huge shoal of Golden Spadefish, it wasn’t as interesting as the coral at 10 metres. We took our time returning to the dinghy, poking about the coral plain. It was a nice dive, but no sightings of turtles.
After getting our dive gear packed away, we took the dinghy around to the east side of the island and landed on a big white sand beach. There were dozens of tracks of large turtles coming out of the sea to lay their eggs and hundreds of smaller tracks made by the baby turtles returning to the sea.
It’s a pretty beach apart from the tonnes of plastic rubbish that litters the sand. There’s so much that I guess that it’s a struggle for newly hatched baby turtles to push their way through it.
We walked to the south end of the beach, where we found a track leading up over rocks through the trees. This path led us down to another beach on the south of the island, which also has lots of turtle tracks and more plastic. There’s a small settlement of a few houses at the edge of this beach, where I believe people live who are helping to protect the turtles. There was nobody around, but we saw a small hatchery protected by chicken wire.
Back at the boat, we decided not to stay the night because the anchorage is deep and not very well protected, so we upped anchor and sailed 15 miles to Pulau Semut, which is a lovely, well protected anchorage in 12-14 metres of water - one of our favourites in the Anambas.
We were tired after our manic day, so we drank our last two beers and had an early night.
10 August 2016 Pulau Semut, Anambas
It was lovely first thing this morning - the sun was shining while we were sat in the cockpit having breakfast. An hour later, Glenys noticed a long, black squall line approaching from the south-west. Action stations - we took down our big awning, closed the hatches and zipped on our side flaps. The squall wasn’t too bad, it just gave us 25 knot gusts for five minutes and then light persistent rain for a couple of hours before clearing to a nice, sunny afternoon.
I put on a scuba tank and went to take photos of some Tomato Anenomefish that I’d spotted yesterday on a reef close to us. These fish are localised to the Malay Peninsula and are interesting that the female is much larger than the male. The female is also mostly black whereas the male is red. Unfortunately, there was loads of sediment in the water, so my photos are full of white spots where the flash has reflected back on the sediment.
I still had loads of air in the tank, so I spent over an hour scrubbing the bottom of the boat. We last applied antifoul paint in March, so it’s been on six months. We had a healthy crop of Gooseneck Barnacles on the bottom of the keel and the rudder, probably because we sat in mud for two weeks in Straits Quay Marina. The rest of the hull was covered in a thin layer of green slime, so the International Interswift 5800 antifoul paint has done a reasonable job, but not brilliant.
I scraped off the barnacles and scrubbed the hull all over with a slightly abrasive scrubbing pad to energise the ablative paint and we’re looking good, although I suspect that I ought to haul out in December and give the hull another coat of antifoul before we cross the Indian Ocean next year.
By late afternoon, we had a dozen or so fishing boats surrounding us in the anchorage, all coming in to get shelter overnight.
11 August 2016 Pulau Semut, Anambas
There were four fishing boats rafted up near to us with very long radio antennae, so after breakfast, I went over to have a chat to them. At first they were very shy and no one admitted to speaking any English, so I persevered with my broken Indonesian (although one young man could speak a bit of English which helped.) I’d already prepared a list of questions for them and took along our 8” tablet to be able to show them charts and photographs.
These guys go out 50 miles from the Anambas Islands in their small 30 foot wooden boats and stay out at sea for five days. They are quite sophisticated with GPS, Fish Finders, VHF and SSB radio - hence the long antennae. There are two guys on each boat and they tend to fish together in a group.
They store their fish in large four foot square, ice chests and let me choose a nice big Snapper for 10,000 rupiah (£0.50). Interestingly, they told me that Dorado are toxic, but Snappers, Wahoo and Grouper are good - we always believed that pelagic fish like Dorado are safe. The fishermen had come in last night for shelter from some forecast bad weather, but left to go back out to sea shortly after I returned to Alba, so tonight must be looking good.
I filled our two scuba tanks and we went for a dive on the reef to the south of the anchorage. We went a little further east than last time (I guess at around 03°23.09N 106°17.54E), just off a small headland. It’s about 10 metres deep for a long way, so we found the edge of the reef and anchored on the nearest coral pinnacle.
We headed north to the drop off and descended to 22 metres following the edge of the reef east. After a while, we ascended to 12metres, retraced our steps and then played around on the 10 metre reef which is pretty. The visibility was very good, but there were lots and lots of long particles in the water. The shallower reef is more interesting than the deeper. We saw a small Common Lionfish - the first we’ve seen in the Anambas.
The afternoon was very sunny and hot, so we hid out of the sun and pottered about on the boat. Glenys baked a loaf of bread and a pizza base, so we had peperoni pizza for dinner while watching a movie - no beer unfortunately.
12 August 2016 Pulau Semut, Anambas
After breakfast, we motored around the corner with the intention of stopping at Pulau Tenggiling to try out a likely looking dive site. Unfortunately, there was a 15-20 knot wind from the south making the anchorage a lee-shore, so we carried on to Pulau Mubur, where we dropped the anchor in 22 metres at 03°20.79N 106°13.59E. The anchor was dragging slowly when we tried to back it in, so suspecting soft sand or mud, we let the anchor settle in for ½ hour, after which the anchor held fine.
We’re a long way from the head of the bay, but further in the sea bed slopes upwards very steeply and the reef narrow quickly making it challenging. The last time we were here, we anchored in 8 metres, but were too close to the fringing reefs for comfort.
After lunch, we went to the beach at the head of the bay, which is very, very soft sand - hence our slight dragging of the anchor. We found a faint path at the east end of the beach, which led through a coconut grove and then started up the hill. Wearing only swimming gear, we felt a little under-dressed for a hike, so we’re going to come back tomorrow morning and go exploring.
We tried snorkelling in three different places in the bay and, although the reef drops very steeply, it is badly storm or explosive damaged and not very interesting. The fringing reef sticks out from the shoreline for over 50 metres and is so shallow that it dries at low tide. In the evening, we watched a troop of Long-tailed Macaques foraging on the dry reef.
13 August 2016 Pulau Mubur NE to Tarempa, Anambas
After an early breakfast, we jumped in the dinghy and went ashore, leaving the dinghy on the eastern side of the beach and followed a faint path. The path meandered its way up the eastern side of the valley in pleasantly cool sub-tropical vegetation. At times the path almost disappeared, but mostly it was clear and well-used.
We soon came across cultivated crops, such as chilli peppers, taro and papaya. There were also hundreds of coconut palms, banana trees and even a few Durian trees. As we climbed the steep path, we met some locals carrying baskets up to their farmland and passed a few small buildings that act as temporary shelters.
After an hour’s climb, we reached the top of the valley, turned right and walked along a ridge where we could see down to a village below. A few hundred metres later, the path started to descend quickly, so I assume that it goes down to the village at sea level. We turned around and went back down.
I had a massive fright when I nearly stood on a 3 foot long snake, which was lying on the path, cunningly disguised as a 1½ inch thick root. It immediately reared up, struck at my thighs and disappeared into the bush. Fortunately, it didn’t bite me, but it did scare me. I tried to persuade Glenys that it was her wifely duty to walk ahead of me for the rest of the way, but for some reason she wasn’t that keen.
A little later, we came across the dwelling belonging to the farmers who we’d met earlier and the two ladies invited us onto their front porch, where they gave us a couple of green coconuts to drink. We shared the two small packets of biscuits that we’d brought and we had a good chat. They said that they come from the nearby village by boat and would stay for the day, returning to their village in the evening.
Back at the boat, we had a rest for half an hour and set off to Tarempa Town. Our route took us between the large islands of Mubur and Matak. The channel is only 400 metres wide and with the tall islands, feels a bit like a fiord. The tide was falling, so the current was coming from the north, directly into the strong south wind, so the wind against tide brought up some steep-sided three foot waves, making it a bouncy ride.
It took us a couple of hours to get to Tarempa Town, where we anchored in the corner in front of “Amulet” who have stayed here for the last five days. We then went into town to drop off some laundry (which should be ready in a couple of days) and bought a few provisions. I was very pleased to be able to buy a case of Tiger beer.
14 August 2016 Tarempa, Anambas
We were up early to go to the opening event for the “Festival Lestari Anambas”. At the dinghy dock, there was a gaggle of local fishing boats waiting to go out on a fishing competition - we were invited to go out with them. Hmmm, eight hours watching a fishing line, I don’t think so….
We carried onto the tennis courts where the opening ceremony was taking place. It was a typical Indonesian event, with boring speeches and not much else. Once the ceremony was over, we wandered around a while, fending off people who wanted their photos taken with the “Orang Bule”.
By half past nine, we’d had enough and went for a walk. We went up the right hand side of the Tarempa Beach hotel and followed a rather rough, single-lane concrete track up the side of the hill. This must have been the main road to the north of the island before the causeway was built. It’s a very pleasant walk that climbs up and gives some nice views over the bay.
We stopped to chat to some guys who were trimming the bushes and also burning rubbish at the side of the road. As often happens in Indonesia, a gang of cute little kids latched onto us and accompanied us half way along the one mile road. It was very hot, so when we arrived back at the main road, we gave up exploring and walked back along the causeway.
Back on the boat, I put on my snorkelling gear and went for a swim. Our anchor is buried to the hilt in firm sand, which is good because we’re right in the corner of the bay and a little close to hard land. The water is a little murky with a visibility of five metres, but it was interesting poking around the coral reef next to the causeway and doing a bit of Muck Diving around the pillars and debris under the causeway. I saw quite a few 4” long Jewelled Blennies and some Razorfish, which are odd because they hang vertically with their heads down and swim around in little shoals.
Later in the afternoon, Bryan from “Amazing Anambas” called by as he was returning from a day of windsurfing and we agreed to meet him at the Sakura Inn in the early evening. When we arrived, he was sat in the restaurant (which was closed) with Axel and his father, Eng-Lie, who owns the Sakura Inn. They explained that Sunday was their day off, but then proceeded to make a Mee Goreng for us and brought out some nice cold beers. We had a great evening chatting and working out the meaning of life.